How to Use Your Head to Save Your Brain – Mitchelll Clionsky, PhD

The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

Early bird registration is now open for our upcoming Designing Your New Life Group Program

Join a supportive, dynamic community to reimagine your path and create a meaningful retirement.

Choose from two groups: Thursday (6pm ET) or Friday (12 pm ET), both starting in January.

🔹 Limited Spots Available! Each group is capped at 10 participants, and only 4 spots remain in each.

Don’t miss your chance to join at a discounted rate—secure your place now and start 2025 with intention and connection.

Learn more

_____________________

How could your choices today impact your life tomorrow? 8 out of 10 people over 55 say that Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are a big concern. Our guest today wants you to know that half of all dementia cases are preventable. Dr. Mitch Clionsky is a board certified neuropsychologist who has treated more than 20,000 patients with cognitive problems. He and his physician wife, Dr. Emily Clionsky, have written Dementia Prevention: Using Your Head to Save Your Brain (Johns Hopkins Press). The book highlights the key research findings over the past 10 years and practical actions you can take today to start the process of protecting your brain as you age.

Mitchell Clionsky joins us from Massachusetts.

_____________________

Bio

Mitchell Clionsky, Ph.D., ABPP-CN is a board certified clinical neuropsychologist licensed in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He specializes in the assessment of memory disorders, other neurological diseases, mild traumatic brain injury, and ADHD. He has performed or supervised more than 25,000 such evaluations over the course of his career and still sees more than 500 patients per year. He is also an expert witness in legal cases involving head trauma, testamentary capacity, and disability. He and his wife, Emily Clionsky MD, have authored research published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences. They also present workshops on dementia prevention for professional organizations and business groups. They created the Memory Orientation Screening Test (MOST)™ a brief, accurate test for dementia that has been used by hundreds of health care professionals and previously licensed to Lincare and Quest Diagnostics. They also developed the Accident Concussion Scale (ACS). They live and work in Western Massachusetts.

____________________

For More on Mitchell Clionsky

Dementia Prevention: Using Your Head to Save Your Brain ( Johns Hopkins Press)

Website

____________________

Podcast Episodes You May Like

Why We Remember – Charan Ranganath

Upgrade Your Sleep – Dr. Raj Dasgupta

How Not to Age – Dr. Michael Greger

Better Sleep, Better You – Dr. Frank Lipman

__________________

Wise Quotes

On Alzheimers

“I feel like I’m talking climate control; there’s floods coming, there’s storms coming, but we can do something now. I feel the same way about dementia. If you look at the statistics, we know that if it’s just Alzheimer’s disease, there’s about 6.5 million Americans today that have Alzheimer’s. If you start including the other forms of dementia and the precursors of mild cognitive impairment, you actually get up to about 10 million Americans. When you project out to the year 2050, that doubles. So now we’re getting to a point where literally one out of every three people either has dementia or is caring for someone with dementia. And that’s an unsustainable kind of burden economically as well as personally. But if we can cut the number of cases in the future in half, then we don’t end up with twice as many in 2050. We end up with the same number now, but we actually have more people being alive. So there’s a real economy that’s safe plus a true economy of dollars because it’s very expensive.”

On Dementia

“What’s the one thing I can do? And the answer is there isn’t one thing. There’s a whole group of things which interact together. So it’s much more complex than people would like to give a credit for. On the other hand, if you understand why it’s complex and how it’s complex, you don’t go looking for simple solutions. You look at the whole picture and a personalized approach that says, what can I do? How could I assess where I am? What can I change to improve my chances going forward? And that’s what makes this really interesting is the personalization of it, the fact that one size doesn’t fit all ..but getting back to your point, why is prevention important? Well, anything you could do to prevent a fire is better than putting out the fire. Anything that you could do to prevent a flood is better than cleaning up afterwards. Same thing with your health. All of the things that you can do earlier on to prevent a problem later are cheaper, easier, and more effective than what you’re gonna do later on to clean up the mess. That’s what we’re about.”

_____________________

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.5 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

_________________________

The views and opinions expressed by guests on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast are solely those of the guests and do not reflect the opinion of the host or Retirement Wisdom, LLC. The Retirement Wisdom Podcast primarily covers the non-financial aspects of retirement. From time to time we may invite guests who discuss other aspects of retirement planning, solely for educational purposes. Listeners are advised to consult qualified financial and/or medical professionals on those matters.